Forget Google Glass. These Are the Interfaces of the Future

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Forget Google Glass. These Are the Interfaces of the Future

When we talk about design nowadays, the focus has been on the lures (or dangers) of flat design and skeumorphism; whether there should be (or really are any) intuitive interfaces; and wearable, maybe “disappearing” interfaces.
But these discussions ignore half the problem. Any software system has a digital interface and a physical interface. The digital user interface (UI) is crucial, but physical or housing design -- the design of the machine as a real object -- has been a crucial problem since Eliot Noyes inaugurated IBM’s field-leading design program in the 1950s.
We’re still trapped inside the design world of the 1960s -- the last era in which fresh design thoughts (as opposed to endless re-runs) dominated the field. Since the advent of personal computers around 1980, our digital stuff (including computers, smartphones, watches, and so on) has barely inched ahead. Our wearable interfaces (glasses, watches) look just like their analog precursors. Office-building architecture has changed since the 1960s (a little, anyway; we still see the 1960s glass-box ice-modernism of Mies van der Rohe in 2010s Renzo Piano, still see biomorphic ‘60s Eero Saarinen in the flustered flappings and flutterings of 2010s Frank Gehry) -- but the offices inside are stuck in 1945: They’re designed for typewriters, wired-up phones, paper filing and large flat writing surfaces. Desk-chairs encourage the back-straight!/chin-out! posture that 1950s secretaries needed to do their best typing on Remington Rands and Selectrics.
But a modern office should obviously be designed around computers and computing -- not the relics of a distant past before Mad Men. Not many people want plastic furniture, so why would they want a plastic computer? A computer housing could be made of wood, metal, glass or a million kinds of plastic, could be surfaced in colored glass tiles, leather, cloth, granite, amber. So why do our laptops and desktops all look the same? Touch-screens become more important all the time, so where are the machines that combine touch-screens at a comfortable distance and angle with the keyboards we still need to create content?

David Gelernter

David Gelernter is a professor of computer science at Yale University and chief scientist at Lifestreams.com. His books include Mirror Worlds, Machine Beauty, and the forthcoming Other Side of the Mind. A former member of the National Endowment for the Arts governing board, Gelernter is also a painter who recently exhibited his work in Manhattan.
Little has changed in the senile world of computer design. The design field is stuck with dead-end shapes that are dearly beloved because they are old. Even our “departures from the conventional are conventional” -- as I wrote in The New York Times exactly 16 years ago as of this past Saturday -- in a piece called “Breaking Out of the Box,” complaining that computers were everywhere, were ugly, and all looked the same … merely because we were too lazy to make them better. (A year later, Apple released the iMac, which did finally “break out of the box” shape, literally, and came in bright colors instead of the thousand shades of oatmeal that had been making us nauseous.)
Since then, we’ve entered the world of ubiquitous computing where digital gadgets surround us -- yet our gadgets all hate each other, evidently, because they rarely talk to each other (except in trivial ways). That’s why the ensemble is a big theme of the designs you see here: Our personal computers should add up to something more than the sum of parts. So these new designs address coordinated functionality more than color and finish. (By the way, many of these redesigns suggest a different direction for in-car computers, too -- don’t even get me started on those.)
The devices we take with us, or use together in some workspace, must form a clean ensemble. Hardware and software should be designed together. Why does a telephone need a screen (except for a one-liner to tell me who’s calling), when it’s so easy to carry other, better screen-devices along with the phone? (Do you carry a wallet? Why not build the screen into the wallet?)
Future civilizations will know we were crazy when they see clips of us talking into our screens.

Above: Laptops and Desktops

Current laptop and desktop design is basically no good for touchscreens. As these devices acquire touchscreens (we’re already in the first generation here), their designs need to change fundamentally.
In fact, laptops have always been rotten designs, because they force the screen down low, away from the natural sightline. Fundamentally, a touchscreen means changing the distance between screen and user: The screen now needs to be upright and fairly close to the user, and the keyboard should go beneath the screen -- not beneath and way out front as it is today. Since users needs to touch keyboard and screen, both need to be poised at roughly the same distance from their hands.
The example on the left is a laptop design where one can unfold the screen and use it as a pad, or unfold the keyboard too, which lets you type conveniently without putting the screen too far away for convenient touch control. There’s plenty of room to fit hands beneath the screen, above the keyboard. This design doesn’t compromise the portability of portables in any way.
The example on the right is a desktop with a prism-shaped mount faced with stone. (Pink granite would be nice. Because this base supports the large screen, it must be substantial and look substantial). The prism slants gently upward to the rear, so a keyboard can be pulled forward from its cradle or pushed back out of the way when you want to sit back.

The Wallet Pad

Wallets remain (and will remain) ubiquitous as long as we continue to carry paper money and business cards, random receipts and little slips of paper. Of course many (though not all) wallet functions are getting computerized, too. Given these factors, it’s ridiculous that the wallet hasn’t yet become a small computer that collaborates with our mobile phones.
This design shows a folded “wallet pad” that can do everything a wallet does and a lot more. It is the same size as a standard U.S. wallet (4.5 x 3.5 inches closed); can be backed in leather (like a wallet) for comfortable carrying -- and can store a range of electronic IDs securely, not just cash and cards.
But it has a screen. The screen is useful folded in half -- the size of a typical smartphone screen -- as well as unfolded on the longer dimension, which yields a 4.5 x 7 inch “micropad” for browsing, keeping an eye on lifestreams, and so on. (The screen should use translucent overlays to get best efficiency out of small display-size, thus coordinating software with hardware; but that’s another story.)
Finally, a smart wallet like this would coordinate with our mobile phones (we’d handle texting using the wallet) and all other digital gadgets we carry. Think Pebble Watch meets wallet meets iPad mini -- but also think outside those constraints.

The 'Fist' Phone

Most smartphones are an ergonomic disaster. No one ever wanted a squashed brick for a handpiece; what people do want is a quick, positive way to answer a call or make a call (like a physical button-push). Typing on glass has always been a stop-gap.
I propose a new class of phones that can be operated from inside your palm, and fit comfortably in a closed fist.
A telephone doesn’t need its own screen, except to tell me who’s calling and whether to pick up -- so it only needs a one-line display (which runs vertically). When the phone rings or buzzes, you can check the caller-id and press the domed button on top (to pick up), and you hold or clip it (to talk and listen) like a normal phone that’s micro and feather-weight.
Numbers can be summoned with phone-in-hand, hand-in-pocket using a simple click-push-button interface that cycles through frequently-called numbers; before long, you’ll remember that your wife is one click, Joe Schwartz is four clicks, and so on.
I want to dial comfortably while I’m walking or otherwise living. A well-designed phone should make it easy for me to dial common numbers with my hand on the phone without having to take it out of my pocket until the number is ringing.

The Smart Watch

There’s no reason a smart watch should look like every other watch. It also makes no sense to design such hardware without designing the right software with it.
So this watch runs a lifestream -- a time-ordered blend of all the communication and news in your life: past, present, and future. (Someone at Forbes wrote a very nice piece based on my Wired Opinion here about how lifestreams could usher in a new time-based interface for watches, et. al. That’s exactly the point.)
This watch, by default, displays a translucent clock-face with associated simple widgets in the corner circles (like temperature, weather forecast, a pending-appointment flag, and so on).
But if you quick-wobble your hand (in olden times people used to do this often, to restart stuck analog watches), the clock face temporarily disappears and you see the incoming stream of your digital life: communications (email and other messages), social networks (Facebook, Twitter, etc.), and information (news feeds) from other sources, merged together.

The 'Walk-In' Computer (Office)

Today’s workspaces are designed around typewriters, not computers. In fact our desktop computers are themselves based on typewriters (keyboard right in front, display just behind it).
I propose a new form of office (what I call a “real pod”) that is essentially a walk-in computer.
A big screen at the far end is the focal point of the office. In this design, there’s a bench under the screen (picture it covered in polished wood planks that match the planked ceiling) for short-term sitting or to hold books, plants, and other stuff; the space below the bench is storage for printing and other supplies.
There’s a window to the right, and a matching cross-flow ventilation window onto the hall at the left, screened or louvered for privacy.
At the other end of the pod is a club chair and ottoman (a spiffier model would have a built in sofa instead), making the space more appealing and comfortable, using it efficiently and encouraging the occupant to sit back, relax, and compute.
Many people don’t like open plan offices yet are stuck in the framework of open plan, cubicles, or closed offices. Why can’t there be a solution in-between? These designs have privacy and plenty of space for the purpose, but they’re smaller than existing closed offices. And they lend themselves to pre-fab manufacturing and stacking onsite.

A Keyboard-Mouse-Control Ensemble

These will be the offices of the future not just because they’re smallish and highly efficient, but because they’re more comfortable than a typical modern office. And arguably healthier.
How can a closed pod be comfortable? In many ways, it’s more like a car than a room or conventional office -- you can’t stand in a car, but a car can still be very comfortable. (The pod I’ve drawn is just high enough to stand in, but there certainly could be pods that are no higher than cars inside.)
Focusing your eyes all day long on a screen only a few feet from your face leads to eye-strain and tension headaches. It’s easier on the eyes and more relaxing to focus on a screen in the medium distance; office workers should be able to do computer work with a keyboard in their laps and a large screen about nine feet away. Result: less eye strain, less stress, more comfort.
Sitting upright at a desk is the way to write with a pen or typewriter. It’s not the way to use a computer. An important component of this office is therefore a remote keyboard-touchpad device like this, to use in your lap. There are two mouse buttons above the keyboard and touch-panel extensions above the buttons.
The bottom line: Think of the office as a system, not just a bunch of stuff dumped in a room. An office should work as an ensemble, and be designed not to meet requirements from 70 years ago but to be comfortable today.

The Smart Stick (and 'Pen')

Finally, the pen. This “smart stick” is the size of a pen and writes like one, too. We already carry wallets and pens; put computers in those, don’t burden us with unnecessary new objects.
This stick displays one line of text -- your latest lifestream element, replaced by an upward-roll when something new arrives.
It can be set on the table or desk at a meeting to make sure you aren’t missing anything more important than whatever’s going on -- which is not quite as rude as parking your squashed-brick phone right in front of you on the conference table.